We crossed to the islands in a flat calm, spent three sunny wonderful days exploring, and then paid our dues with a windy rough, adrenaline producing crossing back to the more sheltered coast. TOP Tina, rear, and Dick Rieman launch through the surf at Edwards Bay. AT LEFT: Three gnomes in the rain under the stump: Greg Lunz, Dick Rieman and Eliot Scull. BOTTOM: Dick Rieman shows off a fish he caught from his kayak, in a photo taken by his wife, Tina.
bass, and salmon most evenings, augmented by soups, pasta, and Lambs Navy Rum, also known as “kayakers toothpaste.� One of the high points of the voyage was our visit to the Goose Island Group, about eight miles off the coast and requiring a crossing that is exposed to the open ocean. We crossed to the islands in a flat calm, spent three sunny wonderful days exploring, and then paid our dues with a windy rough, adrenaline producing crossing back to the more sheltered coast. While on the Goose group, a lovely schooner came into the bay, anchored and sent a zodiac full of folks towards us on the beach. Slightly dismayed to find our idyll compromised, we almost fell over backward when January 2013 | The Good Life
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we realized that the zodiac was full of the children and grandchildren of long-time Canadian friends, and they suspected it was our camp as they entered the bay. Six degrees of separation for sure! We spent a lovely day with them before they sailed back to Port Hardy. While the ferry will drop you off in several locations, you must go to a port of call to be picked up, which found us paddling finally to the Heiltsuk community of Bella Bella, or Waglisla, one of the larger First Nation towns on the coast. The ferry dock is about three miles south of the main town, and we spent our last evening cooking dinner on the beach accompanied by a Heiltsuk family catching the same ferry south. As evening descended, the bay was busy with jumping salmon, eagles roosted on trees all around the bay, and the thought of simply repacking the boats and heading north required great willpower to resist. A wonderful adventure. Now the challenge is to stay alive long enough to paddle the myriad destinations on this marvelous coast not so far away.